This reminded me of the scene in Half Blood Prince where Professor Slughorn was trying to snip the leaves that were waving around. :-)

Pattern is top-down, written for 70 stitches, but could easily be a smaller cast-on via the panel of knit stitches on the edges. Gusset increases are centered on the front, but the heel turn is on the back.

The sock is a bit too small for the model. The bottom leaf isn’t supposed to go down around the bottom of the heel. On my foot, the point of the leaf touches the floor.